


The Beginning of Spring

by TheDarkFlygon



Series: InaCafé/Inazuma Uni AU [5]
Category: Inazuma Eleven
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, Mutual Pining, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29320056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkFlygon/pseuds/TheDarkFlygon
Summary: It's just a day between friends, what could possibly go wrong?(it doesn't go wrong, but it sure goes weird)
Relationships: Otonashi Haruna/Tachimukai Yuuki
Series: InaCafé/Inazuma Uni AU [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1504766
Kudos: 5





	The Beginning of Spring

**Author's Note:**

> So, February 4th was TachiHaru day and, like every year, my stupid F/M OTP/comfort ship didn't get jack shit. Since I have to do everything myself in this goddamn house, I decided I may as well indulge myself in some good ol' OTP fluff, you know, a simple fic for their ship day.  
> Except it's February 9th and this thing is over 7K words.  
> Anyway, hi, I figured I'd write something for a ship day only I care about on this side of the planet.
> 
> I really didn't think this fic would reach such an absurd word count, but guess what? I never know, with myself. Details kept on piling and in the end it became this weird mess that I just want out the door because I need to focus on other stuff and also want to finally rise my fic count for this ship, at long last, because it's scandalous that it doesn't show up in my most-tagged relationships yet.  
> This is, like most of my Inazuma fics, based on my uni/coffeeshop AU, but I believe it can be read without any prior knowledge, since I just go on and on about whatever would need to be explained anyway. It's the magic of being me and obsessed with your own stupid setting. Oh well!
> 
> Enough of my rambling. I hope you enjoy whatever this is, because I at least had fun writing it. These two own my heart and so does including random flatmate hijinks. I should be back with another fic soon.

Tsunami enters the bathroom without a knock, by habit, because all he wants to do is to brush his teeth before his seminary; but he finds himself in front of someone already using the faucet when he should really be on his way out already.

They stare at each other for a moment, with one of them whose toothbrush is still in his mouth and the other is already all prepped up and just want to head there and have a nice time speaking about whatever his seminaries are about. He’s never really understood it, but… wait, that’s not the point. They shouldn’t be staring at each other like two dead fish in a block of ice.

After a couple seconds of whatever this is, he finally spits his toothpaste flush out, cleans after the mess and rinses his mouth.

“Not gonna lie, my dude, I expected you to be out the door already. You’re usually there, like, half an hour in advance.”

“Oh, huh…” He nervously chuckles. “For once, I think I’m worried about my appearance.”

“As if you’re not already paying more attention whenever it’s about her,” Tsunami snorts back, crossing his arms with a smirk. “Why are you more worried than usual, then?”

“I… I wonder if this isn’t, you know… a date?” Just saying that word when speaking about _his_ day feels weird.

“Oh, I see.” The knowing smirk. It’s always the knowing smirk with this guy. “Well, good luck then. Now, if you don’t mind, Tachi, I need that faucet of yours.”

“Ah, s-sure, of course!”

He runs out of the bathroom, leaving the stage to his flatmate, and it’s only when he’s out of the door that he remembers to close the button of his shirt collar.

He quickly grabs his bag, his phone and jacket, and rushes out of the door, hoping his hair doesn’t look too spiky (it’s always been quite the mop of untameable hair, and while he can’t picture himself with flat hair now that he’s been living with said mop for eighteen years, he’d also like it to behave when he needs to look sharp) or that he didn’t mistakenly buttoned the wrong thing together and not noticed it due to being so anxious about what could just be a day between friends.

* * *

Before going to Tokyo for university, he wasn’t used to commuting. Back when he lived in Fukuoka, he’d usually go to school on foot or live in the dorm so much of the time that it made no difference where he lived and where he attended class: he’d usually wake up right next to school and, when he’d need to get home for the weekend or holidays, he’d just take the bus for once.

That’s probably why, every time he boards the subway or train, he feels a little odd. It’s the one thing he never experienced in Fukuoka, so it still feels a little foreign, despite the fact he’s been here for, what, six months at this point? Tsunami is always amused whenever they need to board it together for whatever reason, because, unlike his flatmate, he’s always a little amazed by the speed or the specific language used by its numerous signs and posters.

Having to board this thing for half an hour to get to the meeting spot (which, come to think of it, is really specific not to suspect something) allows him to think back to how he got there. He’s known Otonashi for a while, now: she was one of Raimon’s managers back when they were travelling across Japan to recruit players to fight against pseudo-aliens (that, of course, weren’t aliens, who’d have thought), so they exchanged words from time to time, mostly when she realized he wasn’t too thrilled about family talks. Back then, she’d have also never guessed how deep that rabbit hole went, and he’d have rather kept it hidden from her because he couldn’t even understand it himself – oh well. That was just the beginning.

While he tends to look back at his Inazuma Japan days with a bittersweet feeling in his heart (a great adventure to watch, but a self-esteem-wrenching experience at times, and nobody likes to be the placeholder of the team), he could never do the same about Otonashi during that specific period. They didn’t talk much at all during the preliminaries of the tournament (you know, because he was mostly focusing on training and all, the team had other things to deal with), but when the times arose, she was the one to push him out of the mist of his mind. Feeling like a placeholder? She’d remind him the team was wrong for considering him as such. Feeling like a worthless copycat? She’d yell at him to look up and remind him that was just one prankster’s words. Feeling like he couldn’t deal with the opponent’s shoots because he was objectively vastly underprepared? She’d still tell him he could do it, to fight against it; and man was she loud about it, because he could hear from the goalpost; not that he minded, of course.

But, the thing is, they were junior high freshmen back then. They’d only see each other whenever he was passing by Raimon and all, as a former teammate of soccer club members there, usually for graduation ceremonies. They did exchange numbers when they were in third year: she was the main manager of Raimon and he was Yokato’s captain (oh, yeah, remember when he was captain and she thought it was the coolest thing ever? _That_ sent butterflies down his way), they came across each other when he was on his way out of the changing rooms and she was here to interview him on the match Yokato had just lost. She had never lost her journalist soul, he had just finished his run as a team captain, and it was all sweet and all despite his team losing in the quarterfinals of that year’s Football Frontier.

From then on, it just accelerated tenfold. They sent texts fairly regularly, usually when something at school amused them, about the ongoing championship both of their high schools were competing in and, more rarely, just when something made them think of each other. As one of Inazuma High’s managers, she was there to see some of his team’s match, including the fateful one that lead to what can only be described as a light novel cliché: the hospital visit. The thing, Tsunami and his entire team did so too, so at this point, is there really something worth looking into? Not really, he’d guess.

It did start to pile up, though. She practically saved his life all by herself by picking him up when he was doing who-knows-what in the middle of the city and making sure he’d never be stuck in an unfortunate situation like that ever again. After that point, it was over: she’d call often, he’d sometimes initiate it if he felt like he had something to tell her that may have been worth her storytelling abilities, and they went to each other’s graduation ceremonies. It’s been absurdly smooth, for someone like him who has very little knowledge of whatever has been happening to him.

He can’t pinpoint a moment where his feelings for her shifted from platonic to, you know, not that. He’s usually seen people say there was one of those: _it was when they saved a child from a fire in front of me_ , _it was when they and I held hands and shot together_ , _it was when we got lost in the woods and had to help each other and I finally got to see how beautiful they were_. It’s a trope, a cliché even, and he knows that because studying literature just drains every ounce of mystery from whatever it touches, sometimes. It skews your vision of reality and what to expect from it, so really, he shouldn’t be surprised he didn’t get a single moment where the world stopped and, instead, got multiple little epiphanies while Tsunami just stared at him, amused, knowing before he did about what was really going down.

He supposes it’s been a slow and progressive process. He can’t really say he was in love with her when they were junior high freshmen: frankly, he was too young and immature to know what those things were really about, aside from the pretty stories he read in novels and manga alike. It’s not fully in high school either: they didn’t see each other enough for the magic to happen, yet it helped make it unfold when they finally had said time in university.

Feelings are needlessly complicated, but it’s what gives life and interpersonal relationships their flavours, so in the end, he doesn’t mind that much.

Ah, it’s his stop. He’s been fretting because he doesn’t know anything about this part of town, so he’s been staring at the screen with the lines and obsessively following where the train stopped and started back up, making sure he didn’t have to backtrack and lose time. He may have left early, as he tends to just to calm his anxiety a little, but he still doesn’t want the worst-case scenario to happen.

He gets down, then immediately notices the girl waving at him, his name on her lips. Before long, he’s running in her direction, feeling a smile form on his face.

* * *

Otonashi seems to have put as much thought into her outfit as he did this morning (well, technically, yesterday evening – Tsunami was winking at him all that time, wasn’t he?). She’s been trying out more masculine things, as of late, or so she’s told him: frankly, his knowledge of fashion is at its bare minimum and what is masculine or feminine usually flows over his head. Most of the time, he just attends class dressed in a hoodie jacket and jeans because he’s got no reason to dress fancily nor get interested now.

On the other hand, if there’s one thing he’s sure of and for which fashion knowledge doesn’t feel required to him, it’s that Otonashi could wear anything and he’d find her pretty anyway. She could wear Tsunami’s mismatched socks-and-sandals and he’d probably not be able to tell her that’s ugly – mostly due to the fact he’d find no issue if she did it. Today, she’s wearing a (better) variation of what he’d put on with would he need to attend an important oral exam or a job interview (come to think of it, he wasn’t even well-groomed when he interviewed for his position at the café – there’s no real need to, when your interviewer is Tsunami Jousuke…): under her coat, earlier, he saw a blazer to go along with her pants and sneakers.

Her outfit isn’t what interests him the most, however: it’s her face, obviously. While she usually has fairly wavy hair to begin with, he can notice she’s purposefully amplified the effect today. A couple stands have found their way in front of her features, mostly around her eyes. She’s never been the kind to put on a lot of makeup, and this time is no exception, even if he has the feeling she may have played around with some of it. In any case, and whatever her intent was, it’s working on him.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” She asks, breaking him out of what must have been a daze. “Let’s get moving!”

He shakes his head to get rid of the remaining daydreaming haze.

“Sorry! You’re right, let’s not waste any more time.”

As soon as they exit the station, instead of the busy streets he expected, they’re in a fairly calm neighbourhood. He knows Otonashi and her brother live in such a place because the Kidou estate just allows them to live in such a place while he can only look in awe at how much money his own parents should be making – money whose face he’s never really seen – but their situations are reverse in that way. She used to live with loving middle-class parents whom she comes back to from time to time and now profits from her brother’s adoptive father’s fortune along with him, while he lived alone for eighteen years and now shares the rent of his flat with his best friend. Nothing to be this thoughtful about, but…

“What’s on your mind?” Otonashi’s question brings him back down to Earth once more.

“Nothing, really… I’m just thinking about how I’ve never been here.”

“You’ve always been the kind to admire places you don’t know, haven’t you?”

“Well… Kinda…?”

They chuckle together as, indeed, he notices his eyes drifting around the street: the houses, the serenity all around, the few people walking around. The air is fairly warm, for early February, which truly gives its day its reputation as the beginning of spring.

“I take that you like it?”

“Yeah, of course! It’s a pretty place.” A ting in his heart: it reminds him of something he hasn’t seen in a little while. “It’s a little like where I lived in Fukuoka.”

The smile on her face falters down a little. He usually refrains from mentioning his hometown for a good reason.

“Oh… If you want, we could go elsewhere, it’s just that…”

“No, it’s fine,” he shakes his head, trying to reassure her with a smile of his own. “I liked the ambiance there. Sometimes, I wish things were calmer around campus, so… I don’t mind, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”

“You’re not telling me that to make me happy or anything of the sort, _right_?”

“No, of course not! I really don’t mind!”

She stares at him, suspicious, before looking forward again, reprising her usual enthusiasm.

“Then let’s go! There’s a place I really want us to go, but first, I need to get something elsewhere, so we really should get moving!”

There are things that really haven’t changed between them since junior high. One of them is the tone she uses every time she suspects he may be dishonest about something, which in turn means she’s suspecting if he isn’t saying something to please someone else. She’s seen through most, if not all, of the untrue “I’m fine” and “don’t worry, everything is alright” he’s said to her or near her, sometimes even those whom she wasn’t hear to see nor hear – it’s a superpower of hers, he assumes, born from watching people from the side-lines and her quest to find her then long lost brother.

He used to see that as a threat, actually. He’s never been the most open about his feelings if these were negative due to an irrational fear of bothering people and the feeling he should do everything on his own before even considering asking for help – Otonashi reading through his façades without skipping a beat made him realize he wasn’t as slick as he’d have liked and, in turn, played on those fears. He’s gotten over it, since then, gotten over those flaws in his spirit and moved on from the paranoias his unusual childhood poured into him – gotten over it to a point where he just finds her insistence endearing, nowadays.

They chit-chat about whatever comes to them as they head to wherever she wants them to go. It’s mostly about university: classes, professors, soccer matches, coffeeshop anecdotes. Otonashi vents about her awful English prof who keeps thinking everyone is dumb: he agrees, because they share the same for that class, and that woman is starting to get onto _his_ nerves too. It feels cathartic, yet oddly out of topic, as if they should’ve spoken about something else rather than bad classes and whatever the soccer club is up to these days (he admits he hasn’t been following the team’s shenanigans in a while: he used to, but work and exams caught up to him, and he hasn’t found the energy to pick the topic back up since then).

Come to think of it, this part of town reminds him of what he got to see of Inazuma years ago: the calm and little streets, the riverbanks he sees from far away, the children passing by and pretending to be the soccer players that entered legendary status: Endou, Gouenji, Kazemaru… All of those are names that ring a bell to him. He’s played with them in person, after all, and right now, it almost feels like having met God. To these children, would he tell them, they’d probably not believe him. He’s been forgotten over the years, after all.

“Don’t these kids remind you of something?” Otonashi asks. She’s always the one who initiates their conversations, and he feels like he should be doing something about that already, and yet… he doesn’t, because she usually has better ideas for conversation than he does. She’s just more comfortable doing the talking than he does. “Every time I see them, I just get teleported back to Raimon. It’s funny how that keeps happening despite the fact it’s been, what, a decade?”

“It’s less than that, I believe,” he chuckles back. “More like six years?”

“Yep, you’re proving the point I made to my brother when I told him I couldn’t be an engineering student like him. Numbers are fake anyway.”

“Agreed.”

“Of course you agree, you’re a _literature_ major! Don’t you guys only know how to count pages?”

“I’d tell you that’s a gross generalization, but truth be told, I wasn’t that good at math in high school… and my class is kind of the same, I’d guess.”

After some time, they arrive in a shopping street, filled with little venues that, once more, remind him of good old Fukuoka and its calmer atmosphere compared to Tokyo’s busy lifestyles. While he isn’t exactly homesick for his hometown because he keeps associating it to lonely summers and the injury that made his life to a 180, but this place is the right remedy to the feeling he had of missing the serenity of a quieter city. He’d come back again, alone or accompanied. Maybe he could show Tsunami around.

Otonashi abruptly stops in front of one of the venues, telling him he can stay outside if he wants to, but he doesn’t mind waiting in a queue with her if that’s what she’s concerned about. Plus, he’s a little curious about what the shop looks on the inside, so they head in together without him having had the time to look through the windows or at the sign outside.

As such, it’s only when they enter that he realizes they’re in a cakeshop that looks like it came from another time and another country. He’s not versed in bakery aesthetics or anything, but this looks fairly European to him, and he’s wondering why he’s here to begin with now.

There is nobody in the shop aside from the both of them and the shopkeeper, a woman in her forties with strikingly white hair tied in a bun. She smiles as soon as their eyes meet, a reaction similar to Otonashi as she rushes to the counter, suddenly fired up. To be fair, he can get behind her excitement: the different cakes displayed throughout the shop are quite the marvel to look at, to the point where he wouldn’t dare touching some of them.

“Good morning, Miss Otonashi,” the shopkeeper greets her, a warm smile on her face. “I assume you’re here to pick up your order?”

“That’s exactly why we’re here!”

“Very well. Wait here for a moment, I’ll be right back.”

The woman disappears through the door behind the counter.

“I really like this shop,” Otonashi comments. “I discovered it by accident, but since then, I’ve been a regular. I figured I’d show it to you too. What do you think about it?”

“It’s a… it’s a really pretty place,” he replies, feeling like he should have more eloquent things to say than just that. I didn’t expect you to order something for today, but—”

“Dude, you _have_ to try their cheesecakes. Plus, you’re always short on money, so all you’ve had the occasion to taste are those from the cafeteria, and they’re not the real deal.” (He did know that, but now, he’s curious about said real deal).

“I’ll believe you on that.”

Merely instants after he says this, the woman comes back and gives Otonashi a small white box with what he assumes to be the insignia of the shop on its flanks.

“I don’t think I’ve seen this young man around before. Is he your boyfriend?”

Otonashi and he stare at each other for a little while, his face feeling hot and hers looking just as red.

“N-no,” she replies, snapping her head back at the chuckling woman, “w-we’re not dating, ma’am.”

He’s too flustered to even find a way to say anything back himself, even though he should because – oh, who is he fooling, he’d like to be able to say they’re indeed an item.

“I see,” the shopkeeper replies with a little doubt in her voice.

“Wha… What makes you think we’re even a couple?” He finally finds something to reply.

“I don’t know… It’s just, the way you walked in together, it reminds me of the couples I see come here every once and a while. You reminded me of these two girls who were holding hands, ordering cheesecake… I think they denied everything the same way you two did.”

“We-we’ll be on our way,” Otonashi says before they can dig their grave even further.

“You tell me what he thinks of my cake, then, young lady! Have a nice day!”

“W-will do! Have a nice day too!”

“Ha… Have a nice day, ma’am…”

When they’re both out of there, they both break into a fit of laughter to let go of their pent-up embarrassment.

“Oh my God, this was so bad,” she struggles to say, almost unable to control her urge to laugh again and again. “I didn’t expect that to happen, that’s for sure!”

“Do we really look like a couple to other people?” He wonders out loud after brushing a tear away. “I know people have asked me if Tsunami and I were a thing, but you and I…? I don’t think I’ve been asked that by strangers.” Their friends, on the other hand? Oh, if they knew what happened, they’d never let them live it down.

“That means we should hang out more.”

Silence.

“What.”

They’re back to staring at each other, dumbfounded.

“L-let’s get moving. We’ve still got a bit to walk to the place I wanted to s-show you.

“Y-yeah, let’s.”

He’ll just forget whatever he thinks he just heard and everything will be okay. People think female-male relationships with no romantic feelings whatsoever don’t exist all the time, so it’s not like that’s out of the ordinary either… Oh, and seriously, she probably meant that the two of you aren’t called a couple enough because you just don’t hang out enough! You could say the same for Norika and him, right?

…He’s really trying to fool someone there, but he doesn’t know who or why and, at this point, it’s probably not worth asking.

* * *

They eventually arrive at a pretty spacious house in an even calmer part of town. They’ve mostly been silent ever since that weird sentence she said, probably because of a misfortunate slip of the tongue he’s been overinterpreting in his mind ever since; but he feels like he should at least try to break through this, since they’re there and the rest of the day is going to be very awkward if they just avoid looking at each other for a couple hours in front of some cake.

“So this is the place you wanted to show me?” He asks, looking up and taking in as much as possible.

They’re facing a fairly big house (judging from the number of windows, it’s a three-story house, something he hasn’t seen in quite a while), inspired by European architecture as far as he knows – a feeling he’s getting from the bow-windows on the ground floor and the aesthetic of the garden around it, which very much looks like the English-style gardens they studied a little for some reason in class – with a pond in front of the house. It looks like it doesn’t even belong in this place nor century, as if stuck there by magic. In fact, he’d go as far as to say it must be forbidden to enter there and disturb its peace.

“Yep, we’re here! Don’t just stand there, let’s enter!”

She grabs his wrist and drags him to the front door, where she asks him to hold the cake while she gets out the keys to the house. The keychain on them is much more recent than he expected, so he’s suspecting someone changed it recently (either Kidou or her, though considering it’s a penguin, he’d guess the former was responsible for the keychain change).

“Why this place in particular?” He asks as she unlocks the door.

“It was Yuuto’s adoptive grandparents’ house,” she explains as she removes the key from the hole. “He inherited it when his grandmother unfortunately passed away, last year, and since then, we got the idea to renovate it. We don’t know what we’ll make of it just yet, but it’s been in the works.” She turns back to him, an amused smile on her face. “I figured you may have a suggestion for us, so here we are!”

“Why not, after all.”

She opens the door, after which he gives the cake back to her. He’s a bit surprised she’s prepared two pairs of indoor slippers for them to wear in the house, especially since his pair is the right size – who did she ask for this? Does Tsunami know his shoe size now? Well, at least, the attention isn’t going unnoticed, and he gives her his quick thanks as they head further inside.

The inside is… also European? He’s not sure of how to describe it because he’s not a huge architecture or inside decorating guy, and most of the times where he does hear about houses, it’s in literary descriptions of settings – and he feels like he should’ve paid more attention in the classes about said descriptions. It’s a luminous house with large windows, light colours and whose floor is covered in varnished woods, which makes him doubt it’s actually European in that regard – wouldn’t European houses have tiled floors? He can remember that from somewhere.

Well, who cares about describing a house when all he’s here to do is to spend some nice time with a friend (just a friend, just a friend…). He may have been brought here to give some opinions about said house, but his mind keeps drifting somewhere else, and it’s not helping when he’s already taking time to look around and analyse what he can see.

“So, how big is this place, actually?” He instead asks as they head for what he assumes to be a fairly minimalist living room, even if he can see the contrast between the ornated mirrors and the white walls that have been recently repainted.

“It’s, huh… three bathrooms and six bedrooms, I think? I’m not very versed in that stuff, I usually come here for painting jobs on the weekend and stuff like that. Yuuto’s the one who does the administrative things while I take care of the more material stuff!”

“I see, that’s… quite the big place, yeah. Did you think about—”

He almost slips on the shining wood planks, but before he can plummet to the ground or break his coccyx, Otonashi catches him in his fall and sits him down on the very nearby stool, whose modern aesthetic is really clashing with the mirror he was staring, so he guesses it’s been here only since renovation work has started.

“Hey, be careful! I varnished it last week so you wouldn’t have to stare at wood duller than an English lesson with that prof of ours – I got so scared for a moment!”

Considering he can hear his own heartbeat in his throat, yeah he got scared too.

“Sorry for the stunt, I just… I’m realizing I never polished my floor, back in Fukuoka. I didn’t even realize I needed to do that until I was almost a high school graduate. I don’t even remember how I realized that… I think my dormmate just told me about his parents spending a lot of time doing that in their inn.”

Otonashi’s expression is closer to a deadpan than anything, but he can notice with the slight turn of her mouth that she wants to smirk.

“…You’re the only person I know who’d ever say that in this way, you know that?”

“What do you mean?”

She pulls up a chair from the nearby table (both very modern, closer to the stool he’s sitting on than the general outside aesthetic of the place, and it keeps clashing inside his mind like water and oil) so she can sit in front of him.

“I keep realizing how adult you sound compared to me. It’s so weird, since I’m older and, you know, you were one of the youngest on the team, back then… though I suppose it makes sense, considering you had to take care of so much on your own. I realized how lucky I was to have my Mom and Dad.”

“It’s a thing of the past now,” he replies as he looks away, feeling a bit of pink reaching to his cheeks. “I’m sharing a flat with Tsunami and I’ve got everyone at the café and around. I haven’t felt that crippling loneliness in a long while.”

“That’s a good thing, then. I was afraid you’d grow tired of me, after a while, because you’re always so calm and I’m so jumpy.”

He looks back at her, her words only half-registering because something just tells him parts of what she said was wrong.

“Why would I be?” He asks back, expression flat. “Plus, I think you’re forgetting my tendency to go on and on about whatever’s going through my mind…”

“Ah, well… I never told you about my ex?”

“I think you mentioned him, a couple of times, but that’s it.”

She lifts her head towards the ceiling, a sad aura surrounding her like fog.

“He’d often tell me how chatty I’d get and how annoying I was because of it. The more it went on, the more he’d tell me, and the more I was realizing I was pursuing the wrong guy all along. When we broke up, he threw into my face how much he hated my _impatience_ and my _tendency to speak too much_.” She sighs, still not looking back at him. “That day, I cried, because I felt like I was just an annoying brat, but in the end, I think I also cried of relief. I never liked that guy as much as I made myself believe it.”

He gets up, careful not to slip on the floor again, and, wordlessly, pulls her for the hug he never gave back after their unfortunate reunion in high school.

Who knows how long they stay that way, because he doesn’t bother timing it out. She doesn’t cry and he doesn’t dare say a thing, because every word that comes to him seems like it’d be a clumsy move to do. Her hair is tickling his jaw, soft and perfumed with what he believes to be orange blossom shampoo, sweet and a little citric – it fits her more than she’d think.

They part ways, in the end, when she slips out of his arms. There is still no tear to see on her face, even if her eyes are shining under the sunlight, and he wonders for how long she’s borne these scars, considering they don’t seem to hurt as much as the words she mentions must have. She got over what must have been a traumatic event and, despite the strong demeanour she’s arming herself with, he can tell it’s stuck with her.

That’s not unlike a part of himself, so he can only understand in part why that is.

“What a pair we make, huh?” She says, the saddened expression on her face unwilling to leave. “I’m scared of being annoying, you’re scared of being left behind, and we’re both too afraid to admit it. I wonder if, someday, we’ll get over it.”

“I think so. If I managed to crawl out of the hole I was in a couple years ago, then you can get over it. That sort of things just takes time.”

“You’re right.” Her face lightens up a little, which in turns gives him a couple butterflies for good measure. “We’ve both seen harsher times, so we’ll get through this!”

Her excitement, however, is only short-lived.

“Actually… I need to confess something to you; but first, we should get to eating that cake. I hope you skipped on breakfast today.”

“I mean… I got so anxious I couldn’t eat more than a banana,” he chuckles in response, not forgetting the beginning of her sentence. “I don’t know why I was so anxious too… Probably because I was stressed of missing my stop and being late?”

He knows that’s only partially true, but he doesn’t want to make things awkward if he admits he thought this could be a date, just in case it’s all in his mind… even if he still doesn’t buy the “asking for your opinion on a house” thing. If she wanted an opinion, asking a freshman in university who’s always lived in a three-person apartment sounds like a terrible idea; and, surely, if Kidou and she have been thinking about it for a while, then she should know this.

He doesn’t like the fact it seems like they’re double-crossing each other for some reason.

They go to sit on the table (careful to the floor, _careful_ …). He doesn’t know where she got that knife from, but all he knows is that it’s fancy and that she’s taking great care to cutting this cheesecake properly. Said cheesecake looks beautiful, with a colourful topping of fruits and syrup, and honestly, it looks like it costs over his allowed personal spending budget per month (not that it’s big to begin with). The air is a little tense as she puts his slice on a little plate (which, like the knife and fork she’s handing him, looks like it belongs in a rich grandparent’s well-used cutlery), then sits in front of him. The rest of the table being unoccupied makes the whole room feel empty.

Neither of them starts eating: despite feeling hungry, he also doesn’t feel like starting if she doesn’t, and both of them know they’re not about to drop the topic at hand. He’s afraid of the vibes he’s getting, of the idea she’s hiding something and all of the contradicting sentiments in his mind – _you’re on a date_ , _it’s all in your head_ , _you’re more than friends_ , _you’re just friends_ – all that because his sense of ego hasn’t fully healed from years of abandonment and playing benchwarmer (and if only that was at soccer…).

“You’re less naïve that people think, Tachimukai, so tell me… You don’t think we’re actually here for the house itself, right?”

They see right through each other, these days, especially since he isn’t the easily convinced boy he once was.

“I didn’t understand why you’d ask _me_ of all people, so yeah, pretty much. So… why are we here?”

“I just wanted a cool place where we wouldn’t be disturbed. I love InaCafé like the next person, but Norika and Tsunami would’ve snooped around and clients would’ve come and gone. This house may feel too big for this, but at least, I know there’re only the two of us in here.”

“I assume it’s got to be something very private, if you went this far…” He fiddles with the fork, trying to chase his rising hopes down the drain of realistic expectations.

Otonashi sighs once more, the aura around her turning melancholic. He doesn’t know exactly why he’s having that feeling, but he’d assume it comes from the way her eyes cloud just a little, the way her features soften ever so slightly.

“I mentioned that ex of mine earlier, right? He was my classmate in high school. We met there and he was pretty nice, and a lot of our interests matched, but… the flame never came. I thought that, if I forced myself to date someone who was similar to me, I’d end up getting the same feelings I saw Natsumi and Aki grow.”

He learnt early this university year that both of them were indeed dating – and their picks came to no one’s surprise, not even his, which in itself _is_ a surprise. He’s a little more surprised that someone like Otonashi, as sparkling, charismatic and popular as she is, hasn’t gotten much love life going on.

“The thing is, unlike them, I didn’t meddle well with his personality and, the longer it went on, the more I got on his nerves and the less I wanted to be with him so, in the end, we split. It was a terrible day, but at least, it made me realize that there was already someone in my heart and that this someone wasn’t going to go away anytime soon, if dating some other guy didn’t make them disappear.”

His heart sinks a little hearing this: there has always been this vague _someone_ in her life, huh? He most likely doesn’t even know who this is, by the looks of it, perhaps someone she met long, long ago and lost contact with, dooming her with unnecessary pining feelings. It’s a sad thing to think about.

“I… didn’t know why they stuck to me this much. We only met a couple times back in, like, middle school? We didn’t even live on the same island for a long time. For years, we’d only see each other a couple times, tell each other about what we had been doing, and before long we’d have to go back to our homes.”

The expression on her face changes to a sort of serene smile, the kind the love-stuck clients they get at the café make when they pick a drink for their significant other, the one their recently married professors may make when going on about their lives – this someone is actively in her life. And, well, come to think of it… forget it. It’s probably a mere coincidence.

Still, he doesn’t want her to notice he’s faltering in front of what he must be perceiving as adversity. Truth be told, he may be envious of this person – who is he kidding, this _is_ jealousy. He’s felt it enough for something else entirely that he can’t fool himself on the topic anymore: he’s envious that this person is getting her love. As much as he tries to relativise it – after all, he’s not entitled to her feelings, and she trusts him enough to tell him about all of this, it should be more than enough – envy twists his insides little by little.

Despite this, he can’t show that sorrow to her. Her smile, this oh so sweet smile she has on her lips right now, is what matters. Too bad his own feelings are contradictory on the matter, split between the want to know who this person is for stealing something that never belonged to him and letting things be because that’d be the right thing to do. That is… No. Don’t think about it. It’ll only hurt even more if it turns out to be someone else.

“It changed this year, though. Before then, we’d gotten used to phone calls and text messages, like a lot of long-distance friends you know, but this year, they joined the same university as I did. Since then, we’ve been getting really close. And that’s when I realized this person was the one that, all along, was the one person I really wanted to be with, someone who’d understand me.”

He gulps through his knotting throat – he didn’t even realize this was going on. He didn’t have the shadow of an idea, and it confuses him how that could’ve happened – but he isn’t always with her, which makes sense, and maybe that’s how. That is, if… No. No, no, no. He knows what may happen if he thinks someone is giving me special favours.

“I’m… I’m happy for you, Otonashi,” he forces out of there, mustering a flimsy smile, clinging onto the shred of hope this could be him.

Her face goes blank.

“Don’t tell me you’ve got _no idea_ of who I was talking about, Tachimukai.”

He stares at her for a while, brain crashing out a little, the envy that was growing in his chest suddenly vanishing.

“You can’t mean…” He looks aside, blood rushing to his head and sending it spinning. “Oh God. You really were talking about me.”

“Of course I was! Who do you think I was talking about?!”

“I-I thought it was someone I didn’t know! I…” He doesn’t know what his face must looks like at the moment: flustered? Happy? Distressed? A mix of all three, considering all he’s feeling is a mixture of conflicting auras. “I thought it couldn’t possibly be me?”

“Even after all the teasing our friends have inflicted on us? Really?” She doesn’t hide the laughter in her voice.

“God, I must sound and look ridiculous right now, and for a good reason…”

She suddenly tenses up, prompting him to do the same and stop chuckling about his own awkwardness.

“In the end, I didn’t even get to confess to you properly,” she realizes out loud, staring at him.

“Well, I guess it’s my turn to do so, then?”

It’s her turn to be startled, even if her surprise only last a fraction of his, before he sees the smile he was seeking merely minutes ago. On the other hand, he’s getting flustered enough to physically feel it, his hands getting clammy, the typical symptoms… even when he knows the answer, he’s stressed. That’s comic.

“I… I…” He gulps. “I love you!”

Oh God. That was so embarrassing. Can the soil reclaim him right about now?

Otonashi doesn’t seem to mind, since she’s smiling wild and even laughing along. She doesn’t say anything, so after a moment or two, he finally finds the ability to calm down.

“How about we finally eat that cake? It’d be a shame to let it go to waste, don’t you think?”

“Oh, yeah, of course! Let’s!”

He may have forgotten about the cake sitting right in front of him during all of that commotion.”

* * *

When he eventually comes back home, much later than he anticipated to the point he can smell dinner being prepared, Tsunami doesn’t skip a beat and immediately rushes out of the kitchen, dressed in an apron and holding a spatula with rice grains still stuck to it. He chuckles.

“With that face of yours, I don’t think I need to ask how your day has gone.”

**Author's Note:**

> i still need more of this ship in my life oof


End file.
